1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a musical content utilizing apparatus and a computer program applied to the apparatus, the musical content utilizing apparatus inputting different kinds of content material data about music and providing users with musical information through the use of the input content material data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there has been a musical content utilizing apparatus which provides users with musical content, reproducing musical content comprising music data (e.g., MIDI data), moving image data (motion image data), etc. (Japanese Laid-Open No. H11-341350 (U.S. Pat. No. 6,078,005)). The conventional apparatus is designed such that a reproduction controlling tool for controlling the reproduction made by a sequencer is displayed on a display screen, the reproduction controlling tool being formed by the elements of start, stop, fast-forward, and fast-reverse. The reproduction controlling tool is operated by a mouse click, and the reproduction of a performance made by the sequencer is controlled in accordance with the mouse operation.
However, since the above conventional musical content is created in accordance with a format specifically designed for each musical content utilizing apparatus, there is a problem that a piece of musical content cannot be shared among a different variety of platforms, such as electronic musical instruments and personal computers. Even among utilizing apparatuses of the same type, a piece of musical content cannot be shared if devices incorporated into the utilizing apparatuses vary in feature such as the size, shape or resolution of a display unit. That is, a piece of musical content cannot be shared among different types of platforms.
In addition, some of the conventional musical content utilizing apparatuses employ plug-ins for incorporating an additional capability. For example, a MIDI-capable apparatus can incorporate a plug-in program which enables the MIDI apparatus to reproduce moving image data. However, there is another problem that when a conventional musical content utilizing apparatus has a plurality of plug-in programs having the same capability, the conventional apparatus is unable to utilize the plug-in programs in an appropriate manner.
Moreover, a reproduction controlling tool of the conventional musical content utilizing apparatus cannot be put to effective use because the reproduction controlling tool of the conventional apparatus is used fixedly for the control of the reproduction made by a sequencer. In other words, the reproduction controlling tool of the conventional apparatus cannot be switchable to support various uses such as selectively controlling the reproduction of various content materials and synchronously reproducing a plurality of content materials.
Furthermore, since the above conventional musical content is created in accordance with a format specifically designed for each musical content utilizing apparatus, a piece of musical content cannot be shared among different types of platforms such as electronic musical instruments and personal computers. Even among electronic musical instruments, a piece of musical content cannot be shared if display units of the electronic musical instruments vary in size. That is, a piece of musical content cannot be shared among different types of platforms. Examples of such cases include a case in which some platforms are capable of reproducing moving images, but others are not. In such cases, there is no use supplying all the input content material data to a utilization portion. Worse yet, the supplied data can disrupt processing in the utilization portion.